The Complexities of Queer Identity and Family Relationships

How much does gender identity matter when someone isn’t in your life anymore?

CW: Deadnaming, misgendering, family conflict, estrangement

I’m going to lead in by stating that I don’t have a pithy answer for this one. No tidy little button to sum everything up. I’m throwing it out to the hive mind because I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

I found out recently, during the course of an entirely different conversation, that my mother still uses my dead name and, presumably, gender.

My sister was irate with her over her emotional manipulation regarding my nephew and wanted to show me the full extent of the ‘bullshit,’ and it was pretty standard. Mom wanted my nephew to spend more time with her brother’s family and my sister isn’t comfortable with it and has made that incredibly clear — that family is religious to a degree that doesn’t respect clearly stated boundaries, let’s put it that way. There’s a reason I don’t visit with them anymore, and my sister avoids them too.

But Mom, in the screencap of the conversation my sister sent, was pushing the ‘you and (dead name) were so close with your cousins growing up and I want (nephew) to have that.’

More problematically, she also pushed this agenda on my nephew after my sister said it was his decision ultimately. In the end, Mom got her way. Of course. (It’s easy to emotionally manipulate children. That’s why I have so much trauma from growing up with her! Unlike my nephew, I never had another adult to ground me. Fortunately, he has my sister for a mom instead.)

We ranted for a while about her blatant tactics and how irritating she was to grow up with and then diverted to something else. But under what I said to my sister, I was still churning on the text she had shown me.

I haven’t seen my deadname used for a long time now. Even people who still slip up and misgender me don’t mess up the name.

I haven’t talked to my mom for over a decade now. She gave me a perfect out, I took it. Haven’t regretted it once. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know.

She knows.

Everyone knows.

My sister knows. My father knows. Her brother (the only one she actually listens to now that her father isn’t around anymore) knows. My nephew knows. Now, I’m taking a moment to wonder if that’s not why my nephew sometimes still slips up and misgenders me. Is it from spending time with his grandma?

Apparently she has decided that since we haven’t spoken for a decade, she doesn’t have to respect my name and pronouns.

The obvious takeaway is that it’s disrespectful of her. There’s no real way to go around that.

And it’s also a little annoying that apparently no one is correcting her enough to make her stop. On the other hand, everything with her is a lot of emotional labor and she’d probably start crying about it, so I also get wanting to avoid that conversation. But also, she probably figures she hasn’t seen me since before I came out, so in a way I never came out to her, except over and over during my childhood in ways she pretended not to notice. She likely thinks that it doesn’t matter since I’m not going to speak to her anymore anyway, and I wouldn’t have even known, if my sister hadn’t shown me that message. Since my sister didn’t think it was remarkable, I can only assume it’s her constant behavior.

While this is clearly validating my refusal to engage with her, I really don’t know how I should feel about it. The situation seems unique, but likely isn’t, given the strained nature of so many family relationships for LGBTQIA individuals. Which leads me to ask, gentle readers — what are your thoughts on it?